


Stop Crying Your Heart Out

by doujinbag



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bulimia, Eating Disorders, Hospitals, M/M, Self-Hatred, eren's pov, this is rly sad idk??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 08:52:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2767130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doujinbag/pseuds/doujinbag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi didn't have an eating disorder, because those were for airbrushed fashion models and heavy-hearted teenage girls who wanted to lose weight. Levi wasn't insecure. He didn't hate his appearance. He didn't care if he looked “perfect” or how much he weighed. But I knew there was still something wrong.<br/>I could have saved him sooner, but instead it took him being passed out on the bathroom linoleum for me to see it for real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stop Crying Your Heart Out

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably the saddest one shot I've ever written??  
> Yeah idk. Trigger warning for bulimia. Please do NOT read this story if that's something that can trigger you.  
> And no, I'm not glorifying or romanticizing eating disorders in any way. They are absolutely awful things. If you or someone you know is struggling with one, please don't be afraid to seek help. I feel like this is necessary to say.  
> Without further ado, the story. I hope it doesn't make you as sad reading it as it made me writing it.

I never knew shock until Levi told me his biggest secret. I'd known surprise, I'd known panic, I'd been far too familiar with unpleasant discoveries, but this was different. Because the minute he admitted those two words to me, it felt as if time stopped and I couldn't breathe anymore.

It was a particularly cloudy Tuesday afternoon when Levi matter-of-factly said, "I'm sick."

I didn't understand at first. I debated on asking if he had the flu, or just felt generally shitty, but my mind flew to the worst things. I imagined another repeat of my mother's cancer, and just the thought of Levi deteriorating in such a way made my stomach churn.

Maybe even _that_ wasn't as bad.

After finding out the truth, I felt pathetic. I couldn't do anything to help him and it frustrated me to no end. He told me very clearly, "I do _not_ have an eating disorder."

Right. He didn't have an eating disorder, because those were for airbrushed fashion models and heavy-hearted teenage girls who wanted to lose weight. Levi wasn't insecure. He didn't hate his appearance. He didn't care if he looked “perfect” or how much he weighed. But I knew there was still something wrong. After all, it takes an unhealthy amount of self hatred to force yourself to vomit every bit of food away. I just didn't know what was wrong.

I didn't ask, though. I couldn't bring myself to do that. I didn't want to know what demons Levi had to listen to at two in the morning. I didn't want to know what hurt him so badly that he felt the need to half murder himself just to get rid of it. I didn't want him to have to hurt at all.

It's a Saturday morning when I find him on the bathroom floor. The paper grocery bags fall out of my arms, food spilling everywhere on the hallway carpet as I crouch down next to him in a dizzy hurry. His eyes are closed, but his chest is still moving up and down, still breathing fine. It takes me less than three seconds to pull out my phone and dial 911, my fingers quivering as I press the phone to my ear.

"911, what is your emergency?"

"It's my boyfriend," I whisper, pulling my knees to my chest. "He's… passed out."

"Do you know the cause?"

"I- I don't know, just- just send an ambulance to 104 Trost Court, ple-please."

"I've sent out an ambulance, sir. Is he breathing?"

"Um." My mouth feels dry and my head is starting to ache. "Yes, he's breathing."

"Is he an active drug user?"

"No." I would sound offended at the question if I could, but it's hard enough just to speak English anyways. I hear sirens getting closer to our house and I just wish they'd hurry up. _Save him_ , I think to myself. _Oh god, just hurry up and save him._

"What is your boyfriend's name?"

My breathing gets heavier and I place my hand on the cold porcelain base of the sink as I try to keep calm. "Le- um- Levi." I gulp, trying to refrain from getting sick. Levi's fingers move slightly, and I can see his eyes move around under his eyelids in the slightest just at the sound of his name.

"And what's your name, sir?"

"Eren." My voice catches on itself and soon enough, the sirens are right outside the house. "The- the ambulance is here. I just... I, um... I need to get off the phone."

I hang up and watch as everything seems to go by in a flash: the paramedics dragging the gurney through the doorway, Levi getting boarded onto the mobile bed, the flash of gray I see for a split second as he opens his eyes halfway before leaving me behind on the front step of our brick house.

///

"How long have you known that Levi is bulimic?" the doctor questions me immediately. I have to use every ounce of self control in me to refrain from strangling the gray-faced man with his own stethoscope, and even then, my hands still twitch in an upwards motion for a minute.

"He's not bulimic," I say coldly, the words tasting like a mix of vinegar and blood on my tongue.

"Mr. Jaeger," the doctor sighs. "He even admitted to us that he's had a long history of forcing himself to vomit, or purge, as we call it. He has bulimia nervosa."

"He doesn't have an eating disorder," I say. The words don't even feel real, like I'm not even saying them myself. They feel too forced, too rehearsed. "He told me last week that he's sick, but... but he doesn't do it to lose weight."

"Then why does he do it?"

I shake my head. "I don't know. But you tell me, considering you feel like you know everything already," I hiss.

I've always hated doctors. They never do anything to help. They couldn't save my mother when she lied on her deathbed, and my father neglected me enough growing up to permanently engrave a burning hatred of all people like him in mind. But doctors are only one contributing factor to my even worse hatred of hospitals.

The nurses are too happy, gossiping about their one-night stands as they tap their freshly manicured nails on counters and clipboards, paying no mind to the fact that people are dying all around them. I can hear a heart monitor flatlining in a room across from me. Worst of all, the waiting room is cold and confining. I don't know what's happening to Levi, the flickering fluorescent lightbulbs need to be changed, and all the arms on the tacky red chairs are broken in some way. It's lonely and I can't help but think of all the times someone has sat in this very chair, also waiting on news that seems will never come.

I can't fall asleep, either. The anxiety pulsing through my veins doesn't exactly allow for that. Instead, I count all the visible tiles in the floor as I bounce my leg, trying to keep my mind busy and away from any sort of possible assumptions. _Levi's going to be fine_ , I tell myself over and over again, although even I can't believe my own words.

After what feels like a few hundred eternities, I'm allowed to see Levi. I scramble into the room before I have time to even think about moving my feet, my body shifting into autopilot mode just to get me into the room. The minute I lay eyes on him, I have to choke back a sob.

A million different wires and tiny tubes are hooked up to him, forcing fluids into his nutrition-deprived body. His naturally pale skin somehow looks even paler and I can't help but wonder if I'm only looking at his ghost rather than his actual breathing self.

 _"Levi,"_ I breathe, choking on the last syllable of his name. Tears well up in my eyes and I can't even think about it before they're flowing down my cheeks,  not taking a moment to ever stop.

"Come here," he says, beckoning me closer with one white hand. "Eren, please don't cry, just- please don't. You know I hate seeing you cry."

I cup a hand over my mouth and try to silence my racking sobs, which backfires and only makes them come out louder. "I thought you were going to die," I whisper, breathing in sharply. "I- I thought you were going to-"

"I know," he says, closing his eyes and grimacing. "I'm so sorry, Eren."

I sit down on the stool next to his bed, grasping onto his hand for my life. He feels so cold, I could mistake his skin for an icebox. His fingers are covered in scabbed-over scratches and scars from all the years of cutting his knuckles on his teeth after pulling his fingers from his mouth too quickly, and I internally curse myself for never noticing them sooner than this. I could have saved him sooner, but instead it took him being passed out on the bathroom linoleum for me to see it for real.

"I don't understand," I say, my voice hushed. "I don't understand why. Why? _Why?_ "

"I..." Levi purses his lips, his eyes flicking back and forth from my hand on his to the IV machine next to him. "Eren, if I fully understood it, I would be able to tell you."

"Well, you have to have some _reason_ that you force your fingers down your throat every day! You don't just do that kind of thing without a reason."

"Eren, how many times do I need to say it? I do not like myself. I never have. You know this. You're just unlucky enough to have to be the one that puts up with it. And I'm sorry for that, I am."

"But you said it yourself that you don't do it for your appearance. You told me that it's not for a weight thing."

"Because it's not. I didn't lie to you about that, Eren." Levi pinches the bridge of his nose, and I can tell he's debating on whether or not to tell me what's on his mind. "All my life, nothing has been in my control. I can't control _anything_ that happens to me, Eren. But when I do this... I finally have a say over at least one thing that happens to me. I do it for control. I do it to _feel_ something. There's my answer. Are you happy with it?"

No, I'm not happy with it. I want to _scream_ at him. I want to shake him by the shoulders and shout, _no, you absolute dumbass, I am_ not _happy with it! You're destroying yourself and apparently winding up in the hospital isn't enough to prove that to you! Apparently me, your own boyfriend, breaking down and sobbing in front of you isn't enough to prove it! So stop, stop, just_ stop!

But I'm silent.

Finally, after an achingly long silence, he whispers, "I love you, Eren. Please don't think you're not enough to help me. Every day, you're my inspiration. You're the reason I still force myself to breathe every day. I love you."

I look up at him with bloodshot eyes and shake my head. "Are you sure about that?" I say before turning and walking out of the room.

The hospital was cold before, but now I'm freezing and my spine won't stop quivering.

///

By the time Levi gets home from the hospital, I'm terrified that he hates me. After my little screaming episode, I didn't see him for two days. It wasn't that I was mad at him so much as I was at myself. But I visited him every day after that. I brought him flowers, his favorite blanket, even his favorite kind of pure French chocolate despite it being expensive as all hell for our budget. I would sit with him for hours on end, listening to his heart monitor beep with every pulse his heart made, reminding me he was alive. He just wasn't talking.

As I drive him home that gloomy Friday, the whole car ride is an awful kind of quiet. It isn't the kind of silence that’s awkward or even harsh; it’s much worse. This is the sort of silence that wraps its tendrils around my bones and digs its nails into my arteries, making me cringe with every glance at the man staring out the window next to me. It’s the silence that whispers _could-bes_ and _should-bes_ in my ears, abusing my mind like a poisonous alcohol would. I want Levi to talk and he just _won't._

Once we pull into the driveway, I don't bother turning the ignition off. I just sit there, listening to the dead rumble of the car engine as I press my forehead into the steering wheel. Levi doesn't move. He simply watches me, staying quiet as my knuckles turn white from gripping onto the wheel too hard. And finally, I speak.

"Why won't you talk to me?" I say in a silent cry. "Just say _something,_ for god's sake, _please_. Levi, I'm begging you. I can't take this silence anymore."

I hear him inhale and exhale a few times, and I'm about ready to give up again until he places his hand over my clenched one. "What I told you was wrong," he says. "I was wrong and I am so sorry. I know I can control some aspects of my life. And you... holding onto you should be one of them."

I look up at him, blinking away the tears in my eyes. He leans in and kisses me, his scratched-up fingers grazing softly over my cheek as his lips move slowly against mine. I turn the car off and then place my hand on his shoulder, closing my eyes as his teeth nip at my lower lip ever so lightly.

"I miss you," I say, holding onto him so tightly I'm afraid I might accidentally break him.

"I know," he says. "But I'm here, Eren. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere ever again. I promise you, I'm right here..."

///

It takes a long time- a year and a half, to be exact- but he finally makes it. He walks out of the hospital for the last time with a smile on his face, and it's been so long since I've seen it that it's almost foreign. But I love seeing it nonetheless, and it's impossible to keep myself from picking him up and spinning him around in glee.

"I'm free, I'm free, I'm free," he whispers in my ear. "It's over, it's all over."

It's been eighteen months since he's sought help. We've endured eighteen months of countless breakdowns and nightly repetitions of "I can't do this", but finally, he's free from the ball and chain that once clasped so tightly around his ankle and I couldn't be happier.

"I love you so much," I tell him, brushing his hair out of his gray eyes that have once again regained their old glimmer. "I knew you could do it. I'm so, so proud of you."

As we stand in the parking lot of the hospital, he refuses to let go of me, not that I would have let him anyways. "I love you too," he says, and I can hear something different in his voice.

That something is hope.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://spookymileskane.tumblr.com) / [instagram](http://instagr.am/and.a.smile)


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